Monday, October 9, 2017

Owls and Ravens...Halloween Decorating is Complete

I can't remember what our Halloween decorations looked like before our 2014 fire, but I do know that repairing the holiday decor for it as well as Christmas became an important goal.

So for the last two years, I've been building a superior collection of holiday decor that we leave up all of October, replace with a plush turkey for November, and then launch into full-blown trees for December. I confess to having three trees, a large standard tree - a small blue tree - and a white beaded tree, which is out all year long. Three trees may sound like a lot, unless you count my Aunt's eight tree collection. It might be eight. She misplaced a few last year and isn't quite sure.

This is completely true.

I've worked with painting plastic horses, reindeer, zebras, and unicorns, but a trip to an archery range with friends was quite the eye opener. They had decoy animals everywhere. Even coyotes.

I know, I know. The possibilities here are endless. The croc is $700. by the way and about seven feet long. Ouch.

The sporting goods store, Cabela's displayed a fantastic range of animals from geese to ducks to turkey, etc. Just stating the facts here.

And a note: Hallmark has a bird ornament collection, 'The Beauty of Birds' that I don't collect. But in 2016, they made a gorgeous owl ornament in the same vein, and complimented it this year with a 'Ravishing Raven' for Halloween.

I started to watch Hallmark like a hawk. I couldn't get enough of this owl. I love the colors so much. I was obsessed with this color choice and searched Hallmark for more Halloween owl merchandise for two years. While they did release a miniature owl ornament in the same colors this year, I was quite disappointed about the overall lack of owl. There was not enough owl and it was sad.

The only solution was to make some inspired art. This is the sporting goods decoy owl I chose. Some have heads that turn, but this was a solid piece. Sent a pic to Dave and he didn't think I was serious.

That is the face of serious.

This owl stands about two feet tall. To get the thicker gold rims, I used a combination of puffy paint, glue gun, and gold paint. The stars are glued on, there's a gloss finish that should withstand the weather.

Final result. The sporting goods store also had two crow decoys at the time. We love crows/ravens so much, at one point Dave and I were pursuing the ownership of an African Pied Crow, but settled on the conure parrots instead. Same technique for the raised gold, plus gems glued on.

Crows drying.

The three birds took about two days to complete, mostly because of the layers of paint drying from each glue level. I'm very pleased with them. Gems glued on too, of course. Once Halloween is over, they'll be a delight in decorating storage. And as for Halloween night, we have something different in mind, might share a few photos here once it's set up. And each bird has our address on the bottom, just in case they try to fly away, but I think we're fine. Happy spooking! - Liz